Carnegie Mellon's Peers??

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Essentially, I went on wikipedia today and was reading up on Carnegie Mellon University. CMU, to check out what programs they excel in, what they looked like, and how they stacked up against other national universities.</p>

<p>Something that kinda just blew me away.</p>

<p>Carnegie</a> Mellon University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>

<p>
[quote]
Peer institutions of Carnegie Mellon include Caltech, Cornell, Duke, Emory, Georgia Tech, MIT, Northwestern, Princeton, Penn and Stanford.[6]

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And it seems to be self- researched and self-hoisted up by CMU themselves</p>

<p>Carnegie</a> Mellon - Institutional Research & Analysis</p>

<p>I didn't know CMU was of that caliber.</p>

2

<p>CMU has 7 schools and the 2nd largest and 3rd largest are the CFA/HSS schools. This hurts CMU's SAT range and GPA as a whole. CMU has a fantastic Drama/Arts school that is quite large and does not focus on GPA/SAT but rather portfolios and auditions.</p>

<p>The Humanities are also kind of weak, but any top major/school CMU offers will usually be in the Top 10 or higher.</p>

<p>Engineering: Postgrad surveys mirror Cornell's, and in some cases are better, (ECE). Definitely a top tier engineering school.</p>

<p>Computer Science: #1 repeatedly, I don't know too much about it but its definitely top tier also.</p>

<p>Tepper Business: Postgrad surveys mirror Sterns and other top tier bschools that are a step below Wharton. It is CMU's most selective school, surpassing Computer Science in the past year.</p>

<p>CFA: Amazing Arts/Drama program and Architecture, but like I said, focuses on portfolios and/or auditions.</p>

<p>HSS: Great Public Policy, Econ(part of Tepper), and Cogn Psychology/Creative writing. Rest of it is pretty weak though.</p>

<p>Now my hands are getting tired but you get the point. And if you check the most common cross applicant data (which are cold hard numbers), I think it looks about the same.</p>

<p>PS: In fact they are on that same wikipedia site. "For the class of 2010, Carnegie Mellon had the highest overlap in applications with Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania. The class of 2010 had the highest overlap in acceptances with the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University, and Washington University in St. Louis.[12]" </p>

<p>^ This is not an opinion. Shows you applicant overlap (those that also applied to <strong><em>) as well as acceptance overlap (those that also were accepted to _</em></strong>).</p>

<p>So no, it is not "self-hoisted". If you are undecided about what you want to do, I wouldn't suggest CMU over some of its peers like Upenn or WashU (which are pretty strong even if you pick up say, a History major or Women Studies), but if you want to try out multiple majors/interdisciplinaries or pick up a double major even with a strong focus in mind, I'd strongly recommend CMU.</p>

3

<p>Thats everyone in top 20 except...</p>

<p>Harvard
Yale
Johns Hopkins
Brown
Berkeley
Vandy
Notre Dame</p>

<p>I'm wondering why CMU do not believe that they are peer universities...</p>

<p>It probably means I must be hanging around CC forum too much.</p>

4

<p>When someone says Carnegie Mellon, I immediately think of top computer science and engineering programs, and a school that also has an emphasis on drama and the arts. I think only recently in the past couple years or so its Tepper School has been rising and making a bigger presence on Wall Street.</p>

<p>Even so, I don't think its peers are "Caltech, Cornell, Duke, Emory, Georgia Tech, MIT, Northwestern, Princeton, Penn and Stanford." Maybe Emory and Georgia Tech, but not the rest. Although it's a good school, I seriously disagree with what the entry says about Carnegie Mellon's peer institutions--sounds like someone was a bit insecure and wanted to elevate CMU and exaggerate its prestige.</p>

<p>According to USNWR 2008, CMU's acceptance rate is 34%, though Emory is close at 32% and Northwestern at 30%. Not sure about Georgia Tech, though I don't think it's as selective... My source is here: USNews.com:</a> America's Best Colleges 2008: Lowest acceptance rates</p>

<p>I think it really depends on the field you're talking about--for engineering and computer science, CMU can hold on its own even against Cornell and MIT, which is why they are the most common overlap schools. Being in PA, the same state as UPenn, and being one of the best universities in PA at that too, that's an obvious most common overlap school as well--just like UT-Austin is for Rice, as both are in Texas.</p>

<p>CMU no doubt is an excellent school, but I do not hold it as a peer institution of what was stated above. Applicant overlap based on major interests I can understand, but CMU is not on par with Stanford, or Princeton, or Duke. I do not know enough of CMU to say what its more accurate peer institutions would be, but I believe it'd probably be more of the technical nature, more specifically of the engineering and computer science type. In which case, Cornell is a peer institution of CMU.</p>

5

<p>Honestly, to me, CMU seems to be a kind of an Ivy (or comparable) backup school (other than computer science, which I hear is pretty hard to get into)--if you can't get into UPenn, for example, you can fall back onto CMU and still receive a great education. </p>

<p>I do not mean any offense to people attending CMU, this is just my two cents.</p>

<p>If someone got into CMU and the other schools that are allegedly its "peer institutions" like Duke and Princeton, I find it very hard to believe CMU would undoubtedly win the cross-admit battle.</p>

6

<p>Overall, I don't think CMU is on par with Stanford or Princeton either. But by looking at the major and career you are interested it, it is definitely top 10 and above for those fields and definitely top tier. Whereas some schools like WUSTL/Emory are great in 1 precareer field such as premed and are good across the board, CMU is great in 4-6 career majors and is weak in humanities or in general terms.</p>

<p>That is the major difference so it is quite hard to really say what a "Peer" is, but I do consider CMU's peers to be around the likes of the Top 20 to Top 15 if you are going to average its top 1-5 programs with its general school.</p>

<p>I would say it is a peer of Northwestern/Georgetown/Emory/Cornell/etc. It all depends though, for example for HSS, I doubt anyone turned down Northwestern/Uchicago/Cornell/etc. But for Tepper/CS, plenty of students that I go to school with did turn down those schools, including myself who turned down NW/Rice for Tepper.</p>

<p>PS: Like I said, the HSS school brings down the rest a bit and CFA brings down the GPA/SAT as auditions/portfolios matter more. Tepper for example, had a 13% acceptance rate last year and will be lower this year. But check collegeboard for a more updated 28% overall acceptance rate.</p>

7

<p>CMU doesn't really have a peer school, it's a pre-professional school. (a bad word might be trade school). In computer science, it shares applicants with MIT and Stanford. In engineering, it shares applicants with Cornell, Michigan, UIUC, Georgia Tech. business school shares applicants with NYU-Stern, Cornell AEM, Michigan-Ross. </p>

<p>All of the traditional disciplines are known to be job-oriented, or highly quantitative and hands-on, but they also have great arts/music/architecture programs, with humanities being a little weak. </p>

<p>If you take Michigan and Cornell's same programs and make it a little nerdy, and put it in one school, that's CMU.</p>

8

<p>^ Haha, perfect summary.</p>

9

<p>CMU also has a top notch, wicked-good Economics and Psychology departments. </p>

<p>Finally, its Math and Physics departments are excellent. </p>

<p>Any university that produces an intellectual of John Nash's calibre is bound to be excellent.</p>

<p>CMU's only academic weakness are the humanities, such as English, History etc...</p>

10

<p>I'm surprised nobody's ever mentioned Case-Western or RPI as schools to compare CMU with. I know it's often the "next step up" for a lot of engineers, where those two schools are the fallbacks for CMU students.</p>

<p>I wouldn't really say CMU "competes" with MIT much, though. I mean, I don't know anyone there who got into MIT and chose to go to CMU, though I did know a whole lot more that were rejected by MIT.</p>

11

<p>When measured statistically, Carnegie Mellon compares very well with the colleges that have been identified here as peers. However, while it is a peer, it often loses in the cross-admit battles with other institutions as evidenced by the surprisingly low yield of 23%, which I think might be the lowest among USNWR Top 30 national universities. Perhaps causing some of this is the poor comparative gender balance of 60% men/40% women. While better than or similar to many colleges strong in the technical fields (Georgia Tech-31%, Renesselaer-29%, Case Western-43%, MIT-45%), this likely has a detrimental effect on yield.</p>

12

<p>i think people are misunderstanding what a 'peer group' is from an institutional perspective. simply, its a group of schools that the carnegie mellon administration looks to to identify institutional strengths and, more often, institutional weaknesses. creating comparisons with schools often a step 'up' from ones own makes this process easier as, after all, thats where carnegie mellon wants to be.</p>

<p>they dont care too much about undergraduate acceptance rates or usnews; they know who their peers are there (and it should be obvious to anyone that carnegie mellon and notre dame are in no other ways 'peer' institutions). rather, how does carnegie mellon compare with target schools in faculty salaries or per capita lab space? and how much ground is there to make up with mit or cornell in these and other areas?</p>

<p>heck, just search for 'peer schools' on any college website and you will almost certainly find a group that is, on average, more elite than the school itself. for example, of the 17 schools included in a recently-completed student space study at bucknell, only two were less prestigious institutions: franklin & marshall and furman. in contrast, princeton, dartmouth and williams were among the highly selective schools included, and for precisely the reason one would expect: to identify where bucknell is in comparison with the top institutions in the country.</p>

13

<p>erica,
I think that is a very good point. Institutions (and its alums and other partisans) constantly try to associate upwards in their comparisons. We see it all the the time here on CC. That doesn't necessarily mean that the institutions being compared truly are "peers," but it's pretty standard behaviour and plays to the aspirations of the institution and its student, faculty and alumni affiliates.</p>

14

<p>CMU is not on peer with HYPSM or Cal Tech. But its around the "lesser Ivies" (if one can use that term) and maybe even ahead of Cornell and Brown. Certainly its on par with Rice, Duke, Northwestern, and easily ahead of Vandy and Emory. CMU is a smidge better in engineering than NW and Rice, and pretty far ahead of Duke (except for biomed). CMU's comp sci kicks ass, is ahead of Rice and NW's programs which are no slouches. Its econ probably isnt as good as Duke's, but its main Wall street recruits come from the great business school. CMU gets the knock because of its crappy campus life, no Division I sports like Rice Duke Stanford Northwestern and Vandy, and because its overshadowed in the Ivy/MIT driven Northeast. All said however, CMU is friggin expensive, as it may not be on par with HYPSM, but its tuition fees sure are :)</p>

15

<p>I don't know anyone at CMU that would have gone to HYPS had they gotten into them. Comparing CMU to those schools seems a bit weird to me. CMU's much more like MIT with respect to having very strong technical and business schools, but it also has the exceptional school of fine arts.</p>

16

<p>CMU's endowment is pretty small, so it has to charge a ton of money for tuition, and also because of this, the financial aid is terrible, combined with a reputation for absolutely poor social life, 70% guys, poor dining options, and you can see why its yield is so low.</p>

17

<p>Peer schools are schools that share similar ideals, missions statements, and academic strengths. That is why CMU does not compare itself to Harvard.</p>

<p>I agree with the assessments already made in this thread, that it is highly pre-professional and career oriented.</p>

18

<p>I agree with westsidewolf's post a lot. CMU, as stated before, has numerous strong points that usually involve a very strong career and future with extremely high paying salaries and job opportunities. I would say its about the complete opposite of a laid back liberal arts college. People care about the jobs they get and they get them.</p>

<p>Keefer: 70% guys is a bit strong haha, not even Caltech is that bad! Usually it is around 60-40 with the newer years being better, perhaps 55-45.</p>

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<p>So I was just looking through CMU's Fact Book for some info for another thread, and I happened upon their most common cross-applicants. This data is from 2004.</p>

<p>1) Cornell
2) MIT
3) U Penn
4) Harvard & Radcliffe Colleges
5) Princeton
6) Columbia
7) Washington U.
8) Stanford
9) NYU
10) Penn State
11) Johns Hopkins
12) U Michigan
13) Northwestern
14) Yale
15) Tufts</p>

<p>Also, "Top fifteen cross-applicants ranked by admittance overlap percentage."</p>

<p>1) Penn State
2) U Michigan
3) Johns Hopkins
4) Tufts
5) NYU
6) Cornell
7) Northwestern
8) Washington U.
9) U Penn
10) MIT
11) Columbia
12) Stanford
13) Princeton
14) Harvard & Radcliffe Colleges
15) Yale</p>

<p>Note: Overlap refers to the number of applicants or admittees who applied or were admitted to Carnegie Mellon and one of the other schools listed.</p>

20

<p>^^ I want to know CMU's source of info, and whether that source is reliable (as in, it's an accurate survey).</p>